


The Start of a A Lifetime

by hnwriter



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:34:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9387383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hnwriter/pseuds/hnwriter
Summary: The love of a lifetime, the story of a century, Christine and Raoul’s impassioned and storybook love is beautiful for its humanity. One night, Christine and Raoul let themselves become human among the darkness around them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Please be kind! I wrote this for fun and not to win awards.  
> 2\. Semi-explicit mentions of sex about two thirds into the fic...be warned.  
> 3\. Consider this an AU-ish; an added possibility to what could have happened in the gap between Act 1 and Act 2.  
> 4\. Please forgive cross-references between ALW and Leroux. I've seen and read both too many times to tell the difference at this point.  
> 5\. Thanks for reading!

She loved him in many ways.

As a girl, on the coast of France, he was her longest and only friend. When Papa would play his violin, when they would run down the ocean sides, she loved him for his sparkling smile and his eyes that matched the sea. At ten and twelve: he made her the singularly most happy in ways she could not properly comprehend.

At fourteen, he was her first and last kiss. When he returned to say goodbye for the last time, he was the start of what she believed was going to be a forgotten memory. With a tailored suit and slicked hair, he was nothing like the little boy she would run through the sand with, a chorus of laughter as the melody of the summers spent together. She saw him as he was; a boy of noble birth with a future so separate from hers. He was her first kiss and she was hopelessly and beautifully in love with him.

As Little Lotte’s broken heart transformed her to the lonely Christine Daae, as she learned how dark a world was without her father in it, he was her last happy memory she clung to when sleep was so far away. When she would walk the lonely streets of Paris–sparkling to some and dreary to her tired and beaten soul–he was a fairytale. Real enough that she could recite their story backwards and forwards in her mind, but too much of a dream she could not hold him her hands.

At twenty, her fairytale became neither reality nor stayed a dream. No, when the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny returned to her life with a humble knock on her dressing room door, he was everything she wanted just inches out of reach. The Angel she thought she had would never let her have him. Christine, for all her romantic day dreams and naive fantasies, could never believe society would let the darling de Chagny son be married to an actress. He was everything she wanted with the same eyes from her childhood, the same smile, and standing there, she was everything she could not have.

But be whatever it was–God, fate, Raoul’s determination to love her or her will to be free–she let her feelings out. On a cold night when they were closer to the stars than the ground and under the protection of he horizon, she loved him. She wished it was without fear–because she could still not forget the horrors of the Opera House beneath their feet, no matter how shining his smile was–but it was hers. The moment was hers to love him as she was and nothing more, nothing less.

Their love stood on the ground of pain and grief. Every moment of their love after was not easy. Some was–in the loving gleam of daylight, it was easy to love him. But, there were nights when she would lie alone and cold and wonder if there would be a time when she could be truly free from the hanging dread of Erik in the back of her mind.

There were other nights, though. Nights somewhere in between her dreams of his smile and the fear of Erik’s impending wrath where humanity existed. When Christine would remember the warmth of his hand in hers and press her palm to her cheek, her shoulder, her stomach, imagining what it would be like for his warmth to grace her skin. Blush would rise to her cheeks as she would close her eyes and wonder what it would be like to wake up in his arms, his fingers tracing over all of her. When she’d pull off the layers of her clothes, it was Raoul’s soft and gentle hands she imagined to be undressing her. They were young and in love and impassioned with one another–once or twice she found herself with misshappen curls and a breathless smile and a warmth at her thighs she could not quite subside.

She would lie down and look at the empty space beside her, yearning for Raoul’s comfort, his touch. She’d shiver; from the cold or from desire, she didn’t know. But, alone or at his side, she’d always want him closer. When he’d kiss her, she’d dream of his hands caressing over her waist, her hips, her breasts. When she was alone, she’d yearn to be beneath him, his broad and tall body pressed against her, her eyes with no place to look but to memorize every plane of his face. Was it sinful to feel that way about Raoul, her fiance, the love of her life, the other half to her soul? Maybe it was, but she desired nonetheless.

One night, desire became reality. She’d planned on only spending the afternoon at his home with him and his sisters. Snow thought otherwise and had her isolated in his home. He found her firewood and they chatted and laughed and told stories by the warm and glowing embers. Darkness was all around them. Erik descended closer, threatening to pluck her from her happiness. So many nights were consumed by terrorizing nightmares that left her bleary eyed and weak the next day. Sleep was no reprieve from her horrifying reality, but for a night, she could take a breath in the haven of Raoul’s home circled in untouched snow.

They kissed each other full and sweetly because no one was around to scold them for such impoliteness. So in love, so young, and clumsy with an endearing mix of wanting and hesitation, they fell over each other. For a moment, they were caught on the edge of their love. Raoul hovered over her, ocean eyes taking in the softness of her skin, the grace in which her curls were splayed around her head. Christine was frozen, caught up in the twitches of his lips, the freckles over his nose, and just exactly how beautiful he was.

“Christine, I’m so sorry,” he apologized, but only barely moved. Christine pressed a hand at his shoulder, allowing him to stay close if he didn’t really wish to move.

“Please, don’t be. If–”

“Christine–”

“If you wish…please come closer. Please kiss me again,” she breathed, longing on her lips as she could clearly see it in his eyes. Gently–but not without heat, or passion, or love–Raoul returned and kissed his sweet Lotte. And with a kiss, with a sweetness, with a love of a lifetime behind their lips, hands began to move. Christine’s moved at his back, pressing him that tighter. Raoul held her waist, fingers exploring over the curves of Christine, lavishing the sculpture of her exquisite form.

Between a thousand I love yous and many Are you sures and a harmony of each other’s name sighed behind kisses and caresses and touches, clothing and inhibitions fell away to a reverence of the other’s love. Strong and tight, Raoul picked up his lover and took her to the bed of her guest room–the first bed they would share as the soulmates they were. They shared a symphony together that night. In the silence of a still winter outside, and drenched in the glow of the fire, Christine and Raoul made love. It was a little awkward, a little clumsy, a little youthful, but for the young lovers, it was perfect. It was extraordinary. They fell asleep that night an intricate lace of arms and legs and love.

The first kisses at daylight were given by Raoul; first to the spot between her breasts where her engagement ring sat, then to her full and gentle lips. He got up quietly soon after with apologies of his duties and plenty of goodbye kisses. When Christine returned home, and saw all of the familiar faces of her Paris streets, she wondered if anyone else could see just how in love she was with her sweet Vicomte.

The glow of her love, of their love, soon was threatened to be stomped out. Erik returned and his chains tightened. Christine fought for freedom, for the opportunity to not have to choose between rehabilitating her dark angel and loving her sweet Raoul. But, treacherous plots ensued; she would be the flashing jewel in Erik’s web to catch him. She resisted tearfully, Raoul soothed her, apologized for the path they found themselves on, but a different fear, a different suspicion, grew in the soprano’s mind.

When she took the stage as Aminta, and Don Juan Triumphant fell into disarray, Christine looked to Raoul. Only for Raoul, only for her, she looked to her fiance and lover and first friend from her childhood and shining beacon of hope. In the lethal storm that was her grief and pain, Raoul was her lighthouse, calling her back from the recesses of insanity she thought about slipping into so many times after her father died. As she stared at her Raoul and saw the tears in his eyes, she could not deny him the future in which she saw them together; the future which was so close to reality. When Christine turned back to Erik, she knew what she had to do to save Raoul, to save herself, to save their dream. In unmasking her Angel, in throwing him in the most vulnerable spot she knew she could, Christine broke her heart but tried as she could to protect the swell of growth at her stomach, the stirrings of Raoul’s perfect child.

And she was terrified! Horrified! Scared! She knew of the outcome of their night of love making, their night of human desire and passionate love. She knew she was with child, Raoul’s child, but would she see a perfect dawn where she could be Raoul’s wife and the mother of his child, or would she die tonight and her happy secret would end with her?

That night in Erik’s lair, Christine remembers some of it in vivid detail and some in a barely outlined blur. Somewhere around dawn, in his home again, as she sat at his side, refusing to leave him until he woke again after collapsing from exhaustion, she remembers perfectly. When he stirred, when he woke, and they stared at each other and their freedom became reality together, they sobbed together.

“We can be married. We can always have each other,” Christine murmured, her tears falling over their laced fingers.

“You will be a beautiful bride in the summer, I believe,” Raoul weakly, tiredly chuckled. A hesitant smile formed at Chrisitne’s face.

“What is it, my darling?” he asked, gentle and quiet.

“I regret to tell you, but I believe it is wise we get married much sooner than that.”

“Christine, my love, I would marry you in the next hour if you asked. But why must we?” She chucked and pressed a kiss to his knuckles before flattening his palm against her stomach.

“My love, we will be preparing a nursery in the summer. I–that night together–I’m with child,” she whispered. Suddenly, she grew nervous. Would Raoul be happy, or fearful of outside judgement and ridicule? Before she could ask, before she could say anything else, he reached for a kiss.

“You–we–We’re having a child?”

“Yes, my love. We are.”

“Oh, my Christine–” Raoul pulled her to him for another kiss. Not caring for impoliteness or what the servants would gossip about in the morning, they fell asleep next to each other, each of them with a hand over her stomach. The following Sunday, they were quietly married.

At twelve, he was her friend. At fourteen, he was her first love. At twenty, he was the love of her life and husband of her dreams. At twenty one, in the late hours of a fall night, he was the father of her perfect and healthy child.


End file.
